Road Safety Advisory Council (RSAC) Chair, John Gledhill, today congratulated the Government on the new Safer Roads: Non-Urban Road Network Strategy, launched by Infrastructure Minister David O’Byrne.

“The Council is very pleased the Government has accepted its recommendations for safer speed limits and built on them to develop a strategy for improving the safety on our non-urban road network,” said Mr Gledhill.

“The Council was concerned about the number of serious casualties on the non-urban road network.  More than 40 percent of serious casualty crashes were in 100km/h speed zones, with 1319 people seriously injured or killed in the 10 years to 2010.

“The RSAC developed recommendations for the Minister following extensive consultation with the community and stakeholders.

“It is important to note Tasmania is leading Australia and that safer non-urban roads will be delivered whilst ensuring there will not be a one-size-fits-all approach but a targeted approach to assess roads against independently developed criteria.

“This means sealed roads that meet the criteria to safely maintain a higher speed limit, will have a 100km/h speed limit. On those roads that don’t have things such as shoulder sealing, edge lines, side or median barriers, inconsistent alignment, or curves and hills, the speed limit will be reduced to ensure motorists drive at an appropriate speed for the conditions.

“All gravel roads will have an 80km/h speed limit.  During consultation, it was shown that the community fully supported this change.

“We are also pleased new signs will replace the ‘end speed limit’ signs which many in the community told us they find confusing.

“There have been a number of ‘silver bullets’ in road safety such as the introduction of seatbelts, RBT and speed cameras, and I strongly believe that implementing this Strategy will be the next step in delivering significant and lasting reductions in road trauma in Tasmania.”